Sketch for Cast Out the DemonVine Charcoal and Compressed Charcoal on sanded pastel card

This is the first sketch, preparing for the underpainting, of a portrait of a man on a real-life journey to destroy a real-life demon that has influenced and controlled his life for over half a century. I met him 13 years ago and have been getting to know him ever since. We were married eight years ago. I’m still getting to know him – isn’t that the way of life? He is on a journey, as we are all, and I have been privileged to join him on this one – the literal “casting out” of a demon, in the form of his childhood diary that had been violated by a very real, modern-day wicked step mother. This is sketched from one of several photos we took while on that journey to take the offensive, violated journal to a place away from our home and burn the damned thing so that both symbolically and in the real world, he can be free of that evil influence and write as he is meant to do. He wrote about this journey to destroy his diary here.

I am of two minds myself with this sketch, because it is so bold, and stark as it is in the telling of this bold and stark story. My pastellist mind wants to put in the colours of the evening when we made this trek. The pastellist wins (of course) and I will add the evolution of this sketch as it happens.